Unlike the Pacquiao- Mayweather riddle, Keith Thurman is a real answer to the real question about who and what is next

By Norm Frauenheim-

L A S V E G A S – B o x i n g ’ s c hessboard is full of potential moves Saturday with dueling cards that include 18 bouts televised by competing networks and each promoted by rivals who are learning how to cooperate.

Look for more lessons than solutions, more possibilities than answers, for a business confronted by declining pay-per-view numbers and no resolution to the tired question about -versus-Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Pacquiao-Mayweather is a riddle without an answer. Yet, it’s always there, taking the air out of the game and, worse, diverting attention from a generation of young fighters who might help everybody forget about what hasn’t happened.

Meet Keith Thurman.

Fight fans know him. So do fighters. But their awareness of him includes emerging fear. Thurman, a , is beginning to fall into that category occupied by middleweight Gennady Golovkin. He’s somebody to avoid.

Consider this judgment: Oscar De La Hoya was asked Friday to pick between Thurman and Golovkin.

Who’s better?

“Thurman,’’ said De La Hoya, whose Golden Boy entity is promoting the Showtime television card at the MGM Grand that includes Thurman in a co-featured bout before the main event, a possible Mayweather eliminator between (29-3, 19 KOs) and (26-2, 14 KOs).

Thurman (23-0, 21 KOs), who faces Italy’s (31-0-2, 11 KOs), is unlike Golovkin in one key aspect. He isn’t shy.

Thurman might be in a secondary role Saturday night. But he was front-and-center at Friday’s weigh-in.

He mocked Mayweather’s power. Why-oh-why, he asked, should anybody worry about getting knocked out by the so-called pound-for-pound king. Mayweather hasn’t stopped anybody in nearly a generation.

“If anybody should be scared, it’s Floyd Mayweather,’’ said Thurman, who tipped the official scale at 146 pounds during a weigh-in in which everybody made the mandatory except Jose Ramirez (24-3-2, 15 KOs) , the opponent for featherweight Abner Mares (27-1-1, 14 KOs).

Ramirez was three pounds heavier than a catch-weight, 128. He faced a fine if he did not lose the excess pounds. Both Khan and Alexander weighed 147. Thurman’s opponent, Bundu, came in at 146.5.

If Thurman can’t talk his way into a Mayweather bout, he hopes for a chance at Timothy Bradley, who is the star at the top of Bob Arum’s promoted card Saturday at the nearby Cosmopolitan.

Thurman said he wants to be the first to knock out Bradley (31-1, 12 KOs), who faces Argentina’s (23-2, 19 KOs) in an HBO-televised show.

The forthright Bradley might be the most reliable possibility for Thurman. He says he’ll fight anybody and there’s never been any reason to doubt him. His promoter, Top Rank, however, might have some other ideas. has been mentioned. So, too, has a rematch with Juan Manuel Marquez .

There are, after all, reasons to avoid Thurman. More reasons than even Golovkin, De La Hoya said.

Both possess dangerous power. But De La Hoya says that Thurman possesses an added dimension in his ability to move. Sure, Golovkin is strong.

“Very strong,’’ De La Hoya said. “When Canelo (Alvarez) was sparring him up in Big Bear (Calif.), he said how strong he was. But a lot of fighters are strong. There are ways of beating strong fighters. But one thing about Keith Thurman is that he knows how to move. He has lateral movement. He throws combinations. He thinks in the ring.

“Golovkin is a fighter who has to beat you